Me:Calm down. He’s kind of a jerk.
I press send on the last one, and then I feel bad. Charlie’s arrogant, but he isn’t a jerk.
Luca:So why is he invited?
Lavinia:OMG! Are you trying to keep us away from him??!!
Luca:You LIKE him!
Lavinia:You TOTALLY like him.
Two minutes later I have a call from Heather, demanding I fill her in on the “lake babe.”
“I can’t figure him out,” I tell her after recapping my boating disaster.
“I bet that’s driving you crazy.”
It is. I keep inspecting the few pieces of information I know about him, holding each facet to the light, trying to make discordant pieces fit together.
“He’s completely full of himself,” I tell Heather. “But he’s charming. He saved me today and went out of his way to get the cottage ready.” I think of the way he spoke about his niece or nephew. “I have a feeling the bravado could be a front.”
“Sounds like he has issues.”
“Totally,” I say, chewing on a nail.
Heather makes a shortmmmsound, which means she’s also thinking.
“Nan liked him,” I add.
“Did she? Well, she’s a good judge.” She pauses. “A ripped cottage hottie who daylights as a trader…that’s not your usual type.”
“Oh, definitely not. I amnotgoing there.”
“But, Ali, your usual type hasn’t really worked for you. Trevor—”
I cut her off. “I’m not interested inanytype right now.”
She ignores me. “You are a giver, and Trevor was a taker. You put all that work into his business, and he took it for granted.”
Trevor has a small but successful letterpress company. When we started dating, I began shooting all his product samples and social media content. When things were busy, I helped mail out orders. I adjusted my own work schedule so I could man the booth with him at trade shows and referred my bridal clients to him. I pride myself on being a solid friend, a helpful sister, the good daughter. But for the man I loved? I would have done anything.
“And despite what you say,” Heather continues, “youdohave a type.”
I brace myself because there’s no stopping her once she’s made her opening argument.
“Ever since Oz, you’ve been with these tidy, quiet sweater-vest guys.”
Oz is one of those people who showed up at university on the first day fully formed, from the way he shot to the way he dressed. Ripped jeans. Plaid flannels. A pierced eyebrow. He played bass in a band and shot gritty, unflinching images of urban life. He was a great photographer. He still is.
“But just because they don’t have tattoos, doesn’t mean they’re any different,” Heather goes on.
But Ozwasdifferent. He paid attention to me and my work in a way nobody ever had. By second year, we were inseparable, using the darkroom together and watching docs in his Kensington Market apartment. I went to all his gigs. His family lived in Winnipeg, so he spent Thanksgivings and Easters with the Everlys. And I was secretly madly in love with him. There were so many fleeting moments where he’d look at me with affection, or when he told me no one understood him like I did, that I almost confessed. But I never managed it. Until that night in August.
It was the summer after graduation. Oz convinced me to come to a DJ night in a cramped, makeshift venue above a furniture store. We were dancing, and then his hands were on my hips, and then on my backside, and then we were kissing. When he was above me later that night, I thought my heart might split wide open. It was my first time, and it was with my best friend, the man I’d loved for years in silence.
Maybe things would have been different if I’d told Oz I’d never had sex. Maybe he wouldn’t have slept with me. Maybe we’d still be close. When I asked the next morning when we should tell our friends about us, he looked confused, then remorseful. He told me he didn’t see us as a couple, that it had been a onetime thing. I couldn’t help it: I cried an entire river of tears while he held me. When I left his apartment, I told him I’d be okay, but I stopped returning his texts. I cut Oz out of my life.
“Ali, are you listening to me?” Heather asks.
